Butter Forms

Engineering and fabricating

tools for a local bakery.

Butter Forms

Engineering and fabricating

tools for a local bakery.

Fixing an outdated bottleneck process.

Even small businesses face classical manufacturing problems. A local bakery needed to expand production to meet expected demand and needed special tools to decrease time in a bottleneck process. I developed a process which uses food safe silicone molds to replace the process of forming butter by hand.

Economics inform decision making.

An analysis of the engineering economics helped the team make a choice on which direction to take the project. Adding another human operator was inefficient, and the silicone molds reduced cycle time from 30 minutes to 2 minutes. The economics showed a break-even point which provided a competitive return on investment for the tooling.

Tooling made, silicone forms in service.

After testing a prototype silicone form, I machined mold negatives out of HDPE on a Shopbot 3 axis router and cast the food safe silicone. After curing, the food safe silicone is ready for service, dishwasher safe, and durable for over several thousand cycles.

Home Goods Manufacturer

Capturing 200 years of craftsman knowledge.

Home Goods Manufacturer

Capturing 200 years of craftsman knowledge.

documenting centuries old products

This client had no technical information about the products they had been making for almost 200 years. I helped the corporate team translate the craftsman knowledge into a modern 3D file format.

Setting up for the next century of manufacturing

After making the 3D models, I produced a set of drawing packages for the products so they could preserve relevant information and modify manufacturing if need be.

Custom Motorcycle Parts

Engineering and Design for a custom motorcycle shop.

Custom Motorcycle Parts

Engineering and Design for a custom motorcycle shop.

ENGINEERING FOR COMMUNITY OWNED BUSiNIESSES

Designing and fabricating custom motorcycle parts for the builders at Madhouse Motors.

Classroom Hives

Classroom Hives

design

Designed updated parts for the Classroom Hives observation hive system.

prototyping

Prototyped a solution for Classroom Hives to approve. Several changes were made from the original design, but made it cheaper to build.

manufacturing

Sourced a local manufacturer for the new hive parts. Finding a local shop to work with meant that communication would be faster, easier, and more convenient. We also give back to the community by sourcing locally.

Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project

Beekeeping

Beekeeping

4 Years of Beekeeping Experience. From University Clubs, to the Backyards of Suburban Boston.

Home Apiary

I keep what I like to call a teaching apiary at my home. Its where I learn more about bees, and can teach my family and friends about bees. Our home apiary has been used in several Boston Area beekeeping events!

In Home Observation Hive

I keep an observation hive at home. Cohabiting with the bees and observing their movements on the day-to-day brings no end of wonder and fun.

I made an Instructable!

Click on the Instructable robot to see my award-winning Instructable about how to install a hive of bees in your backyard and get bee kisses from the pollinators themselves.

My Intro to Design and Manufacturing

"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." - Werner Heisenberg

"Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous error!— that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures." - Antonio Machado

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible" -T.E. Lawrence